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more apparent on social media, with popular bisexual musician Princess Nokia sharing her bruja practices with her 900k+ Instagram followers. So how did queerness become so heavily intertwined with paganism and spiritual practices? With an extensive knowledge of the history of magick and a PhD in the Anthropology of Religion, there is perhaps no better person to answer that question than university lecturer and YouTube creator DR ANGELA LUCA
Dr Angela Puca (YouTube: Angela’s Symposium). Speaking to Scene, Dr Puca explained the historical connection between the LGBTQ+ community and paganism: “Paganism was particularly prevalent in the US in the early gay and women’s liberation movements – it then reached back to Europe through that lens, and having attended the pagan community in Italy for over 10 years, I have noticed that the overwhelming majority of self-identifying pagans are LGBTQ+.”
QUEER IN SPIRIT
Rachel Badham investigates the relationship between the LGBTQ+ community, paganism and witchcraft ) Queerness, the spiritual religion of paganism
and the practices of magick and witchcraft have long been companions. Historically, the diverse pagan community has provided a space for the marginalised, with contemporary paganism consisting of a rich array of traditions, alongside newer movements such as Eclectic Wicca. The intersection of queerness and spirituality is explored in the book Becoming Dangerous: Witchy Femmes, Queer Conjurers and Magical Rebels – a collection of personal essays in which those who identify with any kind of spiritual movement explain how they offer a kind of freedom that other religions do not. With many modern pagan subcultures actively rejecting hetero and cisnormativity, it’s no
wonder that LGBTQ+ people continue to be drawn to the notion of spirituality, whether that be identifying with the pagan religion or practising magick without any religious connotations.
“[The] witch community attracts people who are already rejecting binary notions of gender and heteronormativity” This phenomenon can be seen in pop culture, perhaps most notably in LGBTQ+ fan-favourite Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which combined queer representation with the practice of witchcraft. Similarly, the presence of spiritual religions and practices is becoming ever
Through her extensive research into paganism in Italy, Dr Puca has found that LGBTQ+ people have a very large presence within the pagan community and suggested that paganism may hold a certain appeal for queer people as its “world view tends to be more in line with a non-heteronormative way of looking at society”. While LGBTQ+ people often find themselves marginalised by dominant religions and movements, spiritual alternatives have provided a space for the queer community. Dr Puca says it is this marginalised state that often leaves LGBTQ+ people in a “liminal stage” where they are not fully part of society “due to patriarchal and heteronormative structures”. As a result, many queer people are both drawn to and identify with the societal and metaphysical liminality of alternative religions and/or spiritual practices, which, according to Dr Puca, can help marginalised groups of people affirm their sense of agency in a society where it is often denied. Today, practising magick continues to be a source of ‘empowerment’ for many queer people, with Dr Puca saying that this can be seen in “more recent ways of engaging with witchcraft and magick that are not necessarily practical – you can see people engaging with witchcraft on social media more in terms of
